October 3, 1890.] 



SCIENCE. 



187 



The following case is reported as adding another to the 

 evidence that jaborandi will produce the effect mentioned 

 under favorable circumstances. Mrs. L., aged seventy-two 

 years, was suffering from Bright's disease (contracted kid- 

 ney). Her hair and eyebrows have been snow-white for 

 twenty years. She suffered greatly from itching of the skin, 

 due to the uraemia of the kidney -disease; skin harsh and dry. 

 For this symptom fluid extract of jaborandi was prescribed, 

 with the effect of relieving the itching. It was taken in 

 doses of twenty or thirty drops several times a day, from 

 October, 1886, to February, 1888. During the fall of 1887, 

 it was noticed by the nurse that the eyebrows were growing 

 darker, and that the hair of the head was darker in patches. 

 These patches and the eyebrows continued to become darker, 

 until at the time of her death they were quite black, the 

 black tufts on the head presenting a very curious appearance 

 among the silver-white hair surrounding them. 



At the time the first of these cases was reported, the facts 

 as stated were received with considerable incredulity, the 

 editor of one well-known Western medical journal openly 

 refusing them credit. Others preferred the charge that the 

 lady had formerly bleached her hair, and that when this was 

 no longer possible her hair returned to its original color. In 

 reply to these "suggestions," I will only say that the facts 

 are known to scores of people at her home in Washington, 

 D.C., and are entirely beyond question. 



As illustrating the ubiquity of the daily press, and the ease 

 with which all sorts of nostrums, valueless or otherwise, 

 may be brought into notice through the newspapers, and how 

 easy it is to make such a matter pi'ofltable to the advertiser, I 

 mention an incident in connection with the case just reported. 



It seems that some enterprising newspaper-man became 

 cognizant of the case, and put a short notice in a New York 

 daily paper to the effect that a drug had been discovered 

 that would turn white hair black, and make hair grow on 

 bald heads, giving my name as being connected with the 

 Smithsonian Institution. This paragraph must have been 

 extensively copied in newspapers both throughout this coun- 

 try and abroad. The first intimation I had of its existence 

 was an avalanche of letters from all parts of the country 

 wanting information, some offering money for the receipt, 

 others enclosing money in advance ; which latter, be it known, 

 I at once returned. One from London, England, enclosed 

 the half of a two-dollar bill, with the information that the 

 other half would be speedily forthcoming on receipt of the 

 formula or medicine. 



These are the only cases thus far reported in which pilo- 

 carpin has been supposed to change the color of the hair. 



In 1879 Dr. Gr. Schmitz ^ of Cologne reported two cases in 

 which pilocarpin stimulated the growth of the hair in alopecia. 

 One patient, aged sixty, was completely bald. Pilocarpin was 

 injected subcutaneously for disease of the eye. After three 

 injections, within a fortnight the head became covered with a 

 thick down, which grew rapidly, so that in four months no 

 trace of the baldness was left. No mention is made of the 

 color. Tn the second case the patient, aged thirty-four, had 

 a bald patch on top of the head the size of a playing-card. 

 There was total restoration of the hair after two injections, 

 in a short time. 



1 Berliner Kllnlsclie Wocliensohrlft, No. 4, 18T9 ; Medical Bulletin, Pliila- 

 delphia, 1882. 



Scholler ^ tells of similar results in animals in which 

 alopecia had been produced by injections of bacteria. 



Oscar Simon ' relates the case of a woman, aged thirty, 

 who had general baldness, — head, eyebrows, eyelashes. In 

 a few weeks, after twenty injections of pilocarpin, the hair 

 of the whole body was restored. In other cases so treated 

 there was no effect whatever. 



Landesberg ^ of Philadelphia says that in more than a 

 hundred cases of eye-disease treated by pilocarpin he observed 

 no effect whatever upon the growth of the hair. The dose 

 and mode of administration are not mentioned. 



In 1882 Julius Pohlman * experimented on white rabbits 

 by hypodermic injections of pilocarpin. The dose used was 

 large, — one grain three times a day. No change in color 

 was noted in pure white rabbits. In party-colored animals, 

 white and brown, in one a brown spot on the back of the 

 head deepened, and spread to a remarkable degree down the 

 back and sides of the animal to the legs. In other individ- 

 uals no change was noticed. Post-mortems in these animals 

 showed enlarged spleen and altered suprarenal capsules. 



D. W. Prentiss. 



POISONING BY MUSSELS. 



In the Lancet, July 26, 1890, Sir Chai-les A. Cameron of Dublin 

 says, "On June 30, Mrs. O'Connor, her tive young children, and 

 her maid-pervant, residing at Seapoint, County Dublin, partook of 

 a meal of stewed mussels. In about twenty minutes after the in- 

 gestion of the mussels, some of the children stated that they felt 

 a prickly ('pins and-needles') pain in their hands. Graver symp- 

 toms rapidly supervened, and in less than an hour one of the 

 children died, the mother and three other children succumbing 

 within two hours after eating the mussels. The chief symptoms 

 were vomiting, dyspnoea, swelling of the face, want of co-ordina- 

 tion in movement, and spasms, principally in the arms. The 

 patients appeared to have died asphyxiated, their faces being in- 

 tensely livid. One of the children and the maid (the latter had 

 eaten but few of the mussels) suffered very much, biit recovered. 

 Medical assistance came rather late, and was not of much use. 

 The mussels had been procured from a small sheet of water to 

 which the sea had access, but which received fresh water and 

 some sewage. Examinations of the water at low and high tides 

 showed that its saltness was twice as great when the tide was in, — 

 a proof that land water drained into it when the tide was out. 

 This land drainage would necessarily, from local, conditions, be 

 impure. 



'It was deemed necessary for judicial purposes, that the cooked' 

 mussels, and the matters vomited by the patients, should be ex- 

 amined for ordinary poisons. This was done, with negative re- 

 sults. The uncooked mussels, compared with mussels of the 

 same size from the open sea, appeared to have much larger livers, 

 and their shells were vei'y brittle. An attempt to extract an 

 alkaloid was made. The generic tests applied, clearly proved the 

 existence of a leucomaine, which, indeed, was obtained in crys- 

 tals visible under the microscope, and corresponded to those de- 

 scribed by Brieger as existing in the poisonous mussels which he 

 examined. The quantity of material available did not, however, 

 yield a sufficient quantity of the leucomaine for a thorough ex- 

 amination. I have procured a supply of mussels from the pond 

 in which the poisonous mussels were found, and hope to be able 

 to extract from them a substantial quantity of the leucomaine, 

 which will probably be found identical with Brieger's mytilotoxine 

 (C5H15NO2). The mussels are mixed with mud having an offen- 

 sive odor. 



"The Seapoint case is another instance of poisonous mussels be- 



I Klebs's Arcblv, 1&79. 



= Berliner Kllnlsche Wochenschrlft, 1879. 



3 Medical Bulletin, Phlladelpliia, 18S2. 



^ Buffalo Jledical and Surgical Journal, 1883, p. 441. 



